If we follow up the development of art in the Exhibition, we may easily fall into the error of thinking that with Millet one epoch closes and another begins. Such was not the case in reality. The contemporaries who appreciated Millet were a diminishing few. Official art despised him. There were no distinctions for him on the part of the State. The critical phrase-makers knew nothing of him or mocked him horribly. The rich connoisseurs passed him by. A very small congregation of moderately well-off admirers, whose valuation appraised their most honest admiration at 1,000 francs at most, bought his pictures at prices which just made it possible for him to live in Barbizon in wooden shoes and a blouse, and to bring up his numerous family on potatoes and bacon. But as he was a personality he succeeded—though only after his death. He made a school, like every one who has something to teach. He gained influence on the views of the creators, the critics, and the public. People began to understand his speech, nay, to feel that what he said was beautiful. But to this day there is no Millet epoch in French art, and his fame is really an optical delusion. His works did not bring him into the mouth of the masses, but the caprice of a millionaire. On the day when it occurred to M. Chauchard to pay 600,000 francs for Millet’s “Angelus,” snobs of both worlds took off their hats and murmured in a voice hushed with reverence: “That must be a great painter.” As we see, the world’s fame is but a question of money. Many more men are able to reckon than are able to feel the beauty of art, and, to the vast majority, its price is the infallible, the one key to the understanding of a work. I must say that the millionaire who acted as Millet’s herald of fame, had no sense of proportion. If the work of an artist is to be measured by a gauge, the figures of which represent gold coins, Millet does not reach the altitude of 600,000 francs, unless we estimate at least thirty of his contemporaries equally high. In technique, Millet follows the Dutch; a David Teniers without humour and without aim at humour. His landscape, never the essential with him, is poorer than that of Rousseau and François, not to speak of Corot. His greatness lies in his personality, in his simplicity, in his avoidance of pose, in the pious earnestness with which he follows the daily toil of the field labourer. That is no new note in art, but it is the manifestation of an individuality. Many are his superiors purely as painters. But souls cannot be compared and measured: they are incommensurable.